Maturation of Spontaneous Firing Properties after Hearing Onset in Rat Auditory Nerve Fibers: Spontaneous Rates, Refractoriness, and Interfiber Correlations.

ABSTRACT: Auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) exhibit a range of spontaneous firing rates (SRs) that are inversely correlated with threshold for sounds. To probe the underlying mechanisms and time course of SR differentiation during cochlear maturation, loose-patch extracellular recordings were made from ANF dendrites using acutely excised rat cochlear preparations of different ages after hearing onset. Diversification of SRs occurred mostly between the second and the third postnatal week. Statistical properties of ANF spike trains showed developmental changes that approach adult-like features in older preparations. Comparison with intracellularly recorded EPSCs revealed that most properties of ANF spike trains derive from the characteristics of presynaptic transmitter release. Pharmacological tests and wa

SUBMITTER: Wu JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5059429 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature